Spamland

One thing I’ve noticed since coming to Vietnam is that the internet is way more spam-laden. I never saw a quarter so much spam in Korea as I do here, and I’m not sure why my spam-blockers don’t prevent the popup windows like they (presumably) did in Korea.

A lot of the spam is for online games, especially kiddie RPG-type games. But I’ve noticed other ones, too, and figured screenshots might amuse–or horrify–my readers who can’t experience the WTF? for themselves.

(Warning: these may be NSFW.)

This first one is the one that seems to pop up most often, for whatever reason:

Unlike some of the others, it’s not interactive… I suppose the image itself is suggestive enough of what the game involves.

But some of the other game advertisements are more creepily interactive, like this one:

That’s some creepy looking cartoonish torture porn stuff, I tell you. That is a fist, yes… apparently one of the interactive options available in this S&M game. Why anyone would get excited from that, I fear to imagine, but… Rule 34, I guess?

There’s even stuff that looks like it’s for little kids for about half a second, until you realize, nope, that’s a pervy old man and a young woman crying under threat of something obviously sexual.

This one is interactive too: here’s what you see when you mouse-over the girl:

Yep, a hand threatening to pull off her top, and another one poised to push her towards the man. And when you mouse over the man?

His threatening bad-guyness comes to the fore!

I’m not sure what spam is so much more prevalent, and so much less susceptible to spam-blockers, than in other places. (I’m also not sure if the torture-porn thing is something specifically Vietnamese, though I have a weird hunch they’re making taking after Japan in this regard, or maybe these spammy sites are advertising because they’re only marginally popular here, I’m not sure.)

But whatever the case, this weirdness shows up from time to time on my computer screen. Local color, is how I try to see it, but it’s a bit creepy.

Yeah, possibly that could be it. I do use one site for that purpose, and sometimes get some very innocuous popups, but definitely nothing of the nature you described. Could very well be to do with the specific site.